So I’m a senior in high school with a 3.05 UW GPA and a 3.7 w GPA. I took PIB, AP, and honors classes my freshman and sophomore year and I took IB classes my junior year and I will be continuing with IB this year as well. My GPA has been stable throughout high school. I don’t have a legitimate excuse for my low GPA other than the fact that I tried to do the hardest classes with the IB program such as HL math. I got a 1400 on the sat and a 29 on the act. I’m involved in a lot of clubs and I volunteer a lot. I’m vice president of 2 clubs and I founded another club. I’ve also been a dancer my whole life. I want to major in neuroscience or cognitive science. I possibly want to major in molecular biology or psychology.
I am an in-state Colorado student so I’m looking for schools that are ranked better than CU Boulder’s neuroscience program because that is the only way I would go out of state because of tuition
I want to live in a city or a college town near a city. I’m also not a need based applicant for financial aid so I’m applying for essay based scholarships on scholly and such.
I would also consider going to a private college if it is affordable and not in a small town
If you know you are not going to qualify for financial aid and you need scholarships to attend private schools, you need to look instate first. Those essay scholarships won’t pay for 4 years of full OOS tuition.
Most OOS schools will look at your UW gpa, and compare it to other students whose GPA /SAT is higher, so it’s going to be difficult to find any funding. Alabama would like your SAT, but your GPA is an issue.
Forget the California schools, too expensive and even with a high GPA, you would still have to pay $40-65K per year.
CU Boulder’s average entering GPA for 2016-17 was 3.65 on a 4.0 scale (according to its CDS), compared to your 3.05 GPA. Only about 15% of freshmen entered with HS GPAs lower than 3.25. Your ACT score falls within CU’s median band (good, but not in the top 25th percentile). So you probably should focus mostly on colleges that are lower ranked than CU Boulder in order to have a realistic shot at admission (although Boulder might not be out of reach if they recompute your GPA favorably). Check out some of your other in-state public options.
Your best bet will be in-state CO schools. You might also explore Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) schools. You can get tuition discounts at participating universities/colleges in western states. Note that often there are a limited number of WUE spots at a particular college. So getting apps in early is imperative.
Yes, colleges typically do interpret GPAs in light of course rigor, up/down trends, etc.
However, your weighted GPA (3.7) seems to be only slightly higher than CU Boulder’s average unweighted GPA (3.65), assuming CU is reporting their numbers correctly (that is, on a 4.0/unweighted scale, as the CDS instructs).
If your school has Naviance, you might want to check your stats against CU Boulder admission results for students from your HS with similar numbers.
Although the CDS instructions say GPA is reported “using 4.0 scale” (which to me suggests it CU Boulder’s “3.65” should be an unweighted average), we can’t assume that every college (or HS) interprets the instructions the same way. So you might want to talk to your GC, contact Boulder admissions, or post to the CU Boulder forum, to make sure you are comparing appropriate GPA numbers.
Regardless, in my opinion, CU Boulder (or another in-state public school) may represent the best balance of academic quality and net cost among your realistic reach-match-safety options. There might be stronger neuroscience/other programs at some schools where you’d have realistic admission chances, but probably not without facing a big net price premium.
If there’s any doubt at all about getting into and/or affording CU Boulder, you might also consider applying to the undergraduate neuroscience program at U of Nevada Reno. https://www.unr.edu/neuroscience/degree-programs You would qualify for the 11K WUE discount, which would make it less expensive than Boulder. ($28,564/year for UNR at the WUE rate for 2018-19, whereas Boulder is over $30K in-state.) Reno satisfies your “in a city” requirement, with beautiful outdoor recreation nearby - just minutes to the CA border but a far better deal than any CA school. (U of New Mexico in Albuquerque is also a WUE-eligible flagship, but it doesn’t appear to have an undergrad neuroscience major. Likewise U of Utah in SLC.)
I second Earlham College. They have decent merit money, and they are tops in the life sciences… top 1% in the nation for med school placement, and top 1% in the nation for colleges whose graduates go on to complete PhDs in the life-sciences.
And… they have a fantastic new science facility; they allow aid and scholarships to be applied to study abroad programs; they have top placement in science internships… with a guaranteed PAID internship or research opportunity for ALL students; and they have remarkable undergrad research opportunities with extraordinary financing.
I am in education and have several former students now at Earlham College. The more I learn about Earlham, the more impressed I have become.
@Nocreativity1 Although, Earlham has a much larger endowment per student than most other schools, Earlham is “in the news” with financial issues because they are one of the few schools that refused to let tight financial times affect their scholarship and aid programs. While other schools avoided deficits by cutting aid, Earlham refused to cut aid, and continued to accept students with high need, as appropriate; Earlham continues to “stack” aid and merit; Earlham continues to include foreign study without additional fees; Earlham guarantees all students research and/or internship funding (up to $5k per student.)
Earlham continues to build fantastic, top-of-the-line new academic facilities; Earlham continues to open new programs and new clubs and teams; Earlham has instituted multiple new endowments in the last few years; Earlham presently has “A” ratings from Moody’s and from Forbes for financials.
And… Earlham continues to rank in the top percentiles for graduate school admissions in nearly every field; ranks at the top for undergraduate teaching, classroom experience; women in STEM, minorities in STEM; ranks in the top 10 for diversity and for international programs.
So, Earlham may be “in the news” but those articles are not telling the whole story…
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I have deleted several posts debating Earlham financials as being OT, covered in other threads, and debate between essentially 2 users.